(CNN) — It's world-famous for the Roman ruins of Herculaneum and Pompeii, destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 C.E., but the latest tourist attraction in Naples shows a very different side of the city.
Opening in June, the Ipogeo dei Cristallini -- Hypogeum of Cristallini Street -- is part of an ancient cemetery, located just outside the walls of Neapolis, as the city was called 2,300 years ago.
Not only is the cemetery more than 400 years older than the ruins of Pompeii and the other Roman towns along the Bay of Naples, but it isn't Roman at all. In fact, it was built by the ancient Greeks, who founded Naples in the eight century B.C.E., and kept it a fully Greek city, even when it came under Roman control centuries later.
It's a game-changing opening, according to archaeologists, that promises to change how we think of Naples, the Mediterranean in ancient times, and even Greek artistry. It also, those involved with the project believe, has the potential to protect Naples from a tourism boom that, if it continues, could bring overtourism to the city.
In the bowels of the city
Forty feet below the garden of a 19th-century palazzo, in what's now the Sanità area of the city, a steep staircase burrowing underground leads to four tombs. Each with their own grand entrance -- one even has Ionic columns sculpted on its façade -- they open on to what is thought to have been the original pathway that mourners would have taken. READ MORE...
